Darth Malum, born Rennek Tarkin, was a young and aspiring Sith in a time of Galactic Chaos and was heir to the Tarkin Family Lineage. As a young boy he was confronted with loss and pain at every turn, which fueled his then unknown force powers. Eventually he came under the care of a band of Matukai, but when a confrontation with a group of Sith arose, Rennek would be pushed over the edge. With the loss of his family, and others he had come to know as such, he was determined to never let it happen again and went on a pilgrimage in order to gain the power he needed to protect the ones he loved. At the end of his journey he was a true Sith Lord and became a pivotal figure in Galactic History.

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Born to the Sith Lord Cygnus Madrigal Tarkin, life was promising for Rennek. But one day the Jedi came to subdue Cygnus and he was forced to send his two children into hiding. Rennek's older brother was matured enough to have his mind and memories warped by Cygnus so that he could forget the trauma of the attack. Rennek, however, was only recently born and his mind could not be altered. So when the time came he was sent into the care of the clone of Ranulph Tarkin.

What Cygnus did not know was that the clone was not the same person as the original. He went rogue and forced his wife, Mira Cintax, and new son with him. He soon fell into a life of drugs and debts. After they fled their imperial scientific facility, Rennek lived the early years of his childhood on Nar Shadda with a spice addicted adoptive father and who turned out to be a caring adoptive mother. Both Rennek and Mira were subject to his abuse, their only salvation came in the form of slavery.

To pay off his debts, the cloned Ranulph sold both of them to a group of Trandoshan Slavers. They were put on the transport Hsskaron and left for Trandosha, however enroute the transport was detoured to Kashyyyk to aid in a Trandoshan raid on the planet. As Wookiee slaves were being brought aboard, a riot started and battle filled the ship. During which Rennek and Mira were freed and they made their way to the escape pods. They both got in an escape pod and launched away from the ship, narrowly escaping it as other Trandoshan ships fired upon it, killing all aboard.

Rennek awoke in a Wookiee village, in a hut that served as an infirmary. There he met a Wookie by the name of Leuchov, who told him of what had happened, it was only later that Rennek realized that the Wookiees did not speak basic and that he had some how learned the language. The story was that the escape pod had crashed in the lower levels of the forest, and that he had been rescued by a band of hunters. When he asked about his mother, he did not receive an answer. Instead he was taken to a Wookie burial sight, and was shown his mother's grave. They told him that she had been mortally wounded in the crash, but had gone peacefully. Rennek blamed himself for his mother's death, telling himself that if he had been stronger or smarter he could have prevented this from happening. It was this moment that started him down the path of the Dark Side.

Several years passed, and Rennek came to know the Wookiees as a family. Leuchov had taken him in and raised him as best he could, and Rennek was grateful. But as the years passed, and he began to realize more and more that he did not really belong and the death of his mother still haunted him. One fateful day he, Leuchov and a group of Wookiee Hunters journeyed down to the very edge of the Shadow Lands. There they gathered meat and trophies from there hunt, when a pair of Terentateks attacked the hunting party. During the melee, all the Wookiees were killed leaving Rennek to fend for himself.

Enraged with the loss of his friend Leuchov, Rennek's hidden abilities in the force were unleashed. In a horrifying blast of dark power, he completely vaporized one of the creatures. His body, fatigued by the ordeal, collapsed. Rennek would have died that day had it not been for a trio of warriors who arrived to slay the monster. At the end of it all the Terentateks were vanquished, they took Rennek to their camp in the Shadow Lands where he met with Master Tarkus, the leader of the Matukai on Kashyyyk. It was he who told him of his powers and he who began his training.

After two months in the Matukai camp without speaking Master Tarkus decides to train Rennek in order to break his depression. After years of training, Rennek had changed. As his strength grew his depression faded. He quickly learned the ways of the Matukai and their force techniques, but Master Tarkus recognized Rennek's fragile state and became worried. Rennek was getting happier each day, feeling that he finally belonged somewhere when he was surrounded by force-users. But the happiness was short lived.

One day a group of sith came to the Matukai with an offer. They offered to raise the Matukai above their nomadic ways and form them into a power the galaxy would come to respect, but in return the Matukai were to aid the sith in their fight against the jedi. Master Tarkus refused outright, and in response the sith attacked. They had anitcipated a negative response and had warriors surround the camp before the negotiations began. Knowing Rennek's fragile state, he had him hide as fighting broke out despite Rennek's protests. As the fighting continued it became more and more apparent that the Matukai did not stand a chance. The fight was was reaching its climax when Rennek refused to hide any longer, when he did he found the camp filled with dead sith and Matukai. He made his way to the center of the camp where he found Master Tarkus fighting the last two sith. He was already injured and would not last much longer. He managed to kill one, but the other took the opportunity to go for the killing blow. It was at that point Rennek intervened, jumping in front of the final sith he uses his own force enhanced strength to plunge his fist into the sith's chest.

With the sith dead, Rennek goes to his master's side to find him dying from his injuries. Master Tarkus died a few minutes later, leaving Rennek broken and hating himself even more than he had when he first came under Tarkus' care. Days of self loathing passed as Rennek left the camp and began to wander the dark forest floor until he eventually came across one of the ships belonging to the sith from before. Boarding the ship he went through the maps and coordinates stored in its database until he comes across the coordinates of a sith fleet.